2016 John Wayne Pioneer Trail - Day 7

Once you leave Lind you will need your permit from the Washington State Parks as the gate codes differ. From Marengo we set off for Ewan and a plan to spend a night in the town of St. John.  We were almost out of Central Washington and the Palouse and noticed the ecology beginning to change - more trees, marshes and vegetation.  Several of the canyon cut-throughs were super marshy and soggy.

We chose to ride on into St. John as a treat towards the end of our trip; however, you can stop in Ewan and then continue on via the Rock Lake detour.  This detour is extremely important to follow due to the fact that there is a caved in tunnel, a rock slide and non-existent trestles, and private property that the owner has not permitted access to. The road detour I describe below does take you pretty close to Rock Lake where you can see the lake and the old trestle and tunnel. St. John is a lovely spot to detour to - many services (restaurants, B&B, hotel, grocery store, etc.) and you can camp at the fairgrounds where there are restrooms to clean up in. There are no services in Ewan, but you could potentially ask for water from one of the house in this sweet little town.  There also appears to be a church here that you could potentially camp at for the night.  You could also choose to ride from Marengo to Pine City. There are no services in Pine City, but you could perhaps ask for water from one of the houses and you could seek shelter and camping near the grain silos where the trail begins again.  I have provided several different directions for riding options below.

Trail riding notes:

• Riding from Marengo to Ewan, then detouring to St. John; it is approximately 7 miles from Ewan to St. John: the trail mostly continues from Marengo to Ewan with several gates that have challenging locks to open. At one point you ride onto Wagner Road and it eventually joins the trail again, but there is little to no signage. When you reach Ewan the trestle is gone so you need to take the steep downhill road to the right and drop down to Highway 23; to continue to St. John you turn right onto Hwy 23 and ride until you reach St. John.
• Riding from Marengo to Ewan, Rock Lake detour to Pine City: When you reach Ewan the trestle is gone so you need to take the steep downhill road to the right and drop down to Hwy 23; pretty much directly across the highway is WR Damrell Road, this becomes Rock Lake Road; follow for a little over 1 mile and then turn right onto Gene Webb Road, this dead-ends into a T where you will turn left onto Stephen Road; follow for approximately 13.5 miles where the road dead-ends into a T where you will turn left onto Pine City-Malden Road; follow this road for 0.7 miles and then turn right at the grain silos back onto the JWPT.

Trail angels: Joe at the golf course in St. John let us camp at the RV park by the fairgrounds. Tammy at the tavern let us use the phone and kept the kitchen open so we could eat our first meal not out of a bag. A lovely couple at Ewan let us know the road was pretty flat into St. John.

Memorable moments: Discovered that we needed an actual permit from Lind to Tekoa from the state, not just a Discover pass.  Managed to call the Ranger and get our permit and she was gracious enough to give us the codes, but neither worked.  First gate lift-over of the day and another later on; lots of other gates that we either went around or were able to make the locks open. Mama and I ran over a bull snake, but it was OK! Ended up riding on private property we weren't supposed to, but the gate opened and there was a state parks sign (**caveat: I believe this has changed as the maps now show trail access is permitted). Spectacular habitats and ecosystems with underground springs causing lush vegetation and animal life. Deep, heavy river rock to ride through. Went through gorgeous columnar basalt formations that looked like forts and other structures. Cows kept running alongside us in one pasture. Had to cross two small marshy spots. Take Wagner Rd until joins trail again, several spots riding on gravel type easements, poor signage and really tough locks to open; Hwy 23 to St. John. Mama fell arriving at our campsite, Rachel fell in the thick gravel. Saw two huge cargo jets fly over.

Wildlife sightings: Lots of red tailed hawks and other birds, 2 coyotes, 1 deer, Fly catchers (?) with nest, Yellow headed blackbird, mama duck and babies, Osprey and nest.

Vital stats:
58 canyon cuts
5 bridges/trestles
1 waterfall
34.93 miles
ATM = 5:03:26
MXS = 15 mph
AVS = 6.8 mph

JWPT Day 7

2016 John Wayne Pioneer Trail - Day 6

Lind to Marengo is another hot, dry, no services section of trail.  You might be fortunate to find trail angels in Ralston, but do not necessarily plan on this. There are also no services in Marengo, unless you can again find trail angels.  Be sure to carry lots of water!!!  Your only shelter will be the shade of grain silos/elevators.  There is a small park in Ralston that you could potentially camp at, but there is no water there.  There is also a significant road detour between Lind and Marengo.  The trail maps that come with your permit offer a detour to Ritzville from Ralston and then riding back down to Marengo and on to Ewan or St. John.  Our group opted not to take the Ritzville detour, but rather rode directly on to Marengo.  If you are at all worried about having the help of trail angels in Marengo or being able to carry enough water, then I highly encourage you to take the Ritzville detour.  There are services in Ritzville and I did not research this at all so cannot offer details on what is available regarding camping, supplies, etc.  There are other blogs/resources that have information you can research; check out the "resources galore!" section on this blog for links. Before you reach Marengo, as you are going down Marengo Road, there is a huge grove of trees to the right; you could potentially camp there, but I believe this is private property.

Trail riding moments: From Lind, you will take 1st street which becomes Van Marter Ave, turn left/take Y to the left on Wahl Road to return to JWPT.  You will take the trail the entire way until you reach Ralston.  At Ralston you can decide if you will take the detour to Ritzville or take back farm roads to Marengo.  I do not have the directions to Ritzville, but they are on the map when you receive your permit.  Our directions are as follows: turn left onto highway 261, take second right onto Benzel Road which makes a hard, natural left; in approximately 1 mile, take first right on Roloff Road; makes a sweeping left and becomes Klein Road; follow Klein Road for approximately 6 miles and turn right onto E Gering Road; road makes natural hard left and becomes Snyder Road; follow for approximately 1 mile and turn right onto E Heineman Road, this will dead-end into a T; turn right onto Hills Road, makes sweeping natural curve to left and becomes E Urquhart Rd; follow for approximately 1.4 miles and turn right onto Marengo Rd. Follow Marengo Road for approximately 3.6 miles until it curves around near some large grain silos. You could potentially camp here overnight.
**Caveat: this detour exists because the HUGE trestle that used to cross Cow Creek no longer exists. I've become curious if it might be possible to ride this section as there is a small little road below the trestle that you could possibly take and get back onto the trail directly over Cow Creek (Google Maps Pin). That being said, I have no idea if this is a huge marsh; how big the creek is or any other information. From Cow Creek it does look like the trail continues on into Ewan. If you were going to attempt to ride this section, I would highly encourage you to drive the back country roads to see if the trail is accessible through this area.**

Memorable moments: Wicked rough trail, road detour at Ralston to Marengo had insane hills!! ~900 feet climbing and 625 feet dropped.  No injuries besides regular bumps and bruises. Amazing old farm homesteads, grain elevators/silos, little railroad stops.  Poor Sandy's lips became incredibly swollen from the sun and wind burn!  Sandy bought a bag of grapes and we ate sun-warmed grapes throughout the day. Passed, and smelled, a mounted cow skull and dead, rotting coyote hanging over a "No Trespassing" sign.

Trail angels: Dale at Jim's Market super sweet and helpful.  Found some lovely trail angels in Ralston who allowed us to use their bathroom and fill up with water.  Their house was incredible!! So much history - 200 people lived in/around Ralston.  The house we stopped at was a hotel, restaurant, whorehouse, dancing floor, meat locker and grain storage throughout its life. It had 16 rooms, but technically only 15 because no number 13. Lots of original parts and pieces.  In Marengo we talked to a wheat farming family that told us there used to be 9 families living there, a grocery store and school.  Marengo was the switch yard for the Milwaukee and Northern Pacific rail lines - one train heading west and the other east. When you ride down to Marengo you will ride past a huge grove of trees - these were planted in 1985 to attract birds.  So many birds!!!!

Wildlife sightings: rabbits, pheasants, quail, lots of birds and insects

Vital stats:
4 bridges
~15 canyon cut-throughs
8 trestle bypasses, one of which was a marsh at the bottom
3 huge underpasses ridden through
35.56 miles
ATM = 5:28:36
MXS = 23.1 mph
AVS = 6.4 mph

JWPT 6